When Senior Mistress Miss A. Jacob retired from Headlands School Mr.Magson had this to say in the school magazine:
Two comments about that:
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- While I don’t doubt the truth of Magson’s words, I didn’t know then, and don’t know now, any student who had a good word to say about Miss Jacob. There’s a little collection of some of the bad below. They run the full range of human emotion from: I was terrified of her to I hated her.
- The brevity of Magson’s remarks seem more that a little mealy-mouthed as a farewell to a very senior and loyal member of the staff. I know that Mr.MacLean was at Headlands considerably longer but compare the effusive and detailed accolades he received. While appropriate, the attention stands in contrast and rather dwarfs this one paragraph.
And that got me thinking about Miss Jacob and wondering: Who was she? Where did she come from? What might she have really been like as a person rather than the ogre the school required her to be.
But First the Ogre
I was a basically a law-abiding – if rather untidy and lonely – child when I arrived at Headlands. No girls had come up with me from Clarence Street Juniors – they had all gone to Commonweal – so I really knew no-one. I did have a big brother but he was in the sixth form which was like another planet.
Sometimes I talked in class, did not walk in single file, forgot essential items of school equipment or failed to complete my homework, although – at first – I usually tried.
I must have been deficient in the requisite school pride. I detested having to wear my school beret on the public bus and always took it off at the earliest opportunity. (This was more of a personal safety issue than a fashion choice. A grammar school hat made you a mark for some who resented your assumed privilege. And anyway, you do have to push back against rules if you are to preserve any sense of self worth. So off with the silly hat.)
These and other crimes often drew Miss Jacob’s attention and that resulted in two things. Firstly it meant experiencing the acid tongue-lashing and the steely looks that could freeze a hot lava flow. Sometimes it meant impositions (lines) or, rarely, detention. Second – it meant learning to go underground and not get caught.
Miss Jacob had a way of lurking in the school driveway. Or setting up prefects to spy and report. So this avoiding took considerable skill.
At that time – age 11-14 – I was deep into war-time escape stories – Colditz, The Wooden Horse – and espionage stories – Odette and Violette Szabo. I was plotting escape routes, parachuting into Nazi occupied France, running spy networks and being tortured by the Gestapo. My imagination was fully primed to deal with Miss Jacob.
Fortunately I was not tempted to commit the most egregious crimes of wearing nail varnish, eye shadow and jewelry so I got off light. There was no humiliation that the school would not inflict in pursuit of the unadorned face and there are many stories about “the walk of shame”. See School Crime in the sidebar of The Changed Face of School Leadership for an example of this treatment at its worst.
Humiliation as a means of school command and control deserves a post all its own.
My crime in addition to the above mention infractions mostly took the form of leaving the premises illegally and I was adept at skipping out of school undetected.
Swindon was, or had been, a railway town and one of the ways that influence was felt was in the very long lunch time – almost two hours.
This was said to give the children of men who worked inside (the rail works) – and who lived close by them – time to get home, eat and return. Of course it was actually called dinner not lunch and after the end of the day you went home for your tea.
The famous works hooter kept us all aware of the passage of time. Want to hear the hooter again?
Escape!
Those of us who ate at school had time on our hands.
I often used mine to slip out the back via the Women’s Institute hut and onto Dores Road and feel gloriously wicked and free. Mostly I just wandered but there was a steamy-windowed coffee bar on Beechcroft Road that had a juke box and sometimes I was brave enough to go there. Once, later, a quiet little pub that still had a rural Stratton feel to it and was willing to serve minors.
One day I was seen and was reported and summoned.
That meant standing in line behind all the other miscreants in the narrow corridor that led to Miss Jacob’s office. It was in the corner of the building near the far entrance where Tarz managed the milk crates and coal was delivered. It always seemed dark and sunless.
After some questioning and lying and the acid tongue application I received my punishment: Write out the first three pages of The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, have it signed by a parent and returned the next day. Another wonderful teacher technique designed to have kids loathe poetry.
Victory!
One time I was sent to her I felt I scored a moral triumph.
It was in the third year and the girls were assigned to domestic science, something I resented bitterly as another waste of time.
If I wanted to eat I could make toast and open a can of baked beans. I did not need to be taught how to rub in flour and lard for pastry. Beyond that, my mother had instilled a nutritional rejection of most things white – white flour, white bread, white sugar, white fat and we didn’t eat meat.
I don’t remember the teacher’s name but she handed me a slab of something red and raw and told me to cut it into cubes for stew. I had never touched or eaten beef in my life. I couldn’t and I didn’t.
This refusal did not go down well The exasperated teacher sent me to Miss Jacob. But this time I knew my moral high ground and took full advantage. She had to let me sit out the lesson without punishment. Victory!
In later years I occasionally absented myself for whole afternoons (The Great Escape) using a second dental appointment card – Lydia Millenbach from Latvia – whose surgery was right by the Milton Road Baths. I went to the cinema and never did get caught.
A Few Testimonials
I had a very pale pink nail varnish on from the weekend and she spotted it and took me to her office took out of bottle of nail varnish remover and scrubbed my nails clean – Susan Malkin
I remember the prefects standing at the school gates. You would get a detention if you had wet hair because it showed you hadn’t worn your bowler hat! – Caroline Smith
Miss Jacob – hated that woman! Shirley Lewis
Miss Jacob told me off for having my hair dyed blonde by my sister and for not showing the badge on my beret Marilyn Stevens (Scrivens)
I was there from 1963 to 1968. Little tiny woman but fearsome! – Gillian Hammond
I attended Headlands between 1962 and 1967. Remember being told off … by Miss Jacobs for wearing white stockings. – Maureen Shand
So many memories of Headlands, but my abiding ones are the run-ins with Miss Jacob and her sarcastic comments and sneering looks in class. She once accused me of wearing mascara and sent me to the cloakroom to wash it off. I returned for inspection a few minutes later, not having done anything, and she said “That’s better, you looked ridiculous with your eyes in spikes”. I’ve never heard anyone say a good word about her! -Shirley Lewis
Miss Jacobs, I think she was called Aggie? was really horrible. She threatened to cut my hair so I walked home and my father went in to see Magson about it. You didn’t mess with my Dad! – Sue Queree
Miss Jacob, very posh! Shirley Lewis
1962- I dyed my hair black and Miss Jacobs called me in to her office, “Do you want to end up working in “Welwuths”? (Woolworths) – Ann Gladwyn
We had Miss Jacob. Now, she WAS scary! – Lisa Stephens
I left in 1969 and remember Miss Jacob’s she was ferocious. If looks could kill! – Susan Malkin
I remember…she scared me to death! – Gillian Hammond
Couldn’t stand the woman – always looking down her nose and that prissy voice! – Shirley Lewis
I left in ’67 and got called in to see Miss Jacobs after she noticed at assembly (on the stage trestles) that I was wearing white stockings. Luckily I got away with it, mainly because I was an innocent looking small girl and she felt sorry for me.– Glynis Maureen Shand
I enjoyed Headlands …apart from Miss Jacobs ,she put the fear of God in me! – Gillian Hammond
I remember Miss Almond and Miss Jacob! Often in the queue outside Miss Jacob’s room for some misdemeanour. Got stopped once in the corridor by Magson who wanted to know if my very pointed fashionable shoes hurt my feet!! Carole Billouin
Miss Jacob wasn’t as ferociously energetic as “Nutty” Almond but we knew she wielded more icy power.
I am sure there will be those who will say she was really nice when you got to know her. And when you were a prefect in the sixth form … and etc. And I am sure they are right. That time never came for me. I was never made a full prefect and Miss jJacob did not have the time, and perhaps the inclination, to get to know me.
I did once run into her on the street when I was home from university and it was a perfectly pleasant encounter and we talked bout Cardiff for a few moments.
And the Voice
In a novel (!) I wrote at the time – using a fountain pen and a home-blended green/ blue ink mix (because of course) – I described an encounter with Miss Jacob as she swept into class to teach us grammar. The face of a cracked plastic duck.
As you can see from the comments above girls did not appreciate how Aggie spoke. Her voice, I wrote, was a mixture of Welsh, B.B.C. and a sparrow with bronchitis.
Aggie was the queen of mean but we learned to be pretty nasty too.
But – who was she, this Miss Jacob who occupied such a large chunk of our school universe? Where did she come from? And what did she think she doing?
And for that read Part Two – The Welsh Connection
If you have a thought about Miss Jacob or a story to tell please leave a comment below.
I don’t think this comment registered so here it is again! I loved Violette Szabo so much I made her the heroine of my novel ‘The Revolutionary’s Daughter.’ Your comments on part of you school life
were very interesting. My school had a Miss Mean, as well.
Gwen.
I loved Violette Szabo to the extent I made her the heroine of my novel, ‘The Revolutionary’s Daughter.’ How interesting this is about your school life or some of it, anyway.
Gwen.
I was wary of Miss Jacobs but not frightened. However ,the Latin teacher Mr. Ferber ( I think) , he was really scary. I did Latin for one year or maybe two and gave it up as soon as possible and all because of my fear of Mr Ferber. He ran the ATC and wore the uniform on the days he was involved in that. He gave us Roman names, I was Valaria. Surely other people shared my fear.
It was Ted (Edward Oliver) Furber. He styled himself the classics master and yes he ran the ATC. He was born in Bristol and was commissioned Flight Officer RAF 1941 and in the RAF Reserve as a Flight Lieutenant.
He retired to Cheltenham. He published “Vivus per Ora. A book of Latin in everyday use from the time of the Vulgate to the present day” 1967 and also translated A.E.Housman poems into Latin and Greek. (One wonders why … but there you have it.)
Furber was never my teacher. I had a year with Miss Harris who also gave us Latin names. (1A seemed to find mine funny – Pomponia – to my embarrassment. Relegated into the M stream for second year and that was the end of Latin. Surprised to read that you dropped Latin. Not having Latin at “O’ level made university entrance difficult in many subjects. Wondering what you took instead.
And you weren’t alone in finding him difficult. I’ve read a few anecdotes to that effect.
Hello Elaine, Josie et alios (topical Latin -geddit?)
Pleased to read the recent anecdotes….have not visited this site for a while.
I thought Furber was not at all scary – just a bit of a twit poncing around at every opportunity in his tight fitting RAF battledress containing his pronounced stomach .
The scary teachers – the only scary ones I can recall – were both women: Jacob & Almond, although by the time I reached the Vth form my feelings were probably concealed contempt for the former & indifference to the latter. Having read Josie’s excellently researched material on them, I have had time to reflect humbly on my jejune judgments…
Anyway, hey ho ! et bona contine.
Ray.
Hi Ray – Thanks for chiming in again. I don’t actually remember Furber myself although I’ve read comments that suggested he could be exactly as you described him. I think Jacob was scary because she had to hold her own in that environment. It was literally her job to manage half the school and keep them in line without the threat of corporal punishment. Looking back now I have sympathy for her position. And especially as for most of her career she didn’t even get equal pay. Almond was another case. It seems clear from her own remarks that she saw herself as something of a scourge. That childhood and especially that religious upbringing …
Josie,
Ave!
Kershaw has challenged my masculinity ( is that word still permissible ?) .
Scared? Moi?
I wasn’t “scared” of Misses Almond & Jacob, just anxious of being humiliated by them in the eyes of classmates. Feeble, I know, as I suspect the others in class could not have cared less other than having been spared the “ordeal” themselves.
[It probably stemmed from my time at Moredon Jnr. School when having had a stroke of the dap on the backside on a couple of occasions in front of the class ( girls’ suppressed giggling) I then had to face the class on return to my desk at the rear of the room. Such embarrassment. Such emotional damage….!]
I agree with your analysis of J & A’s situation & was pleased to be enlightened by your researches.
Sadly, it’s in the nature of things that one rarely resumes contact with those by whom we were taught.
Then, I saw things through a glass, darkly
Vale!
Ray.
The things that were done to kids in the name of education! And still are.
I did meet Jacob on the street once when I was back home during a university break. We had a perfectly civil brief conversation mostly about Cardiff. When researching her life I did imagine the conversation with her in her retirement in Penarth. Having a good old chat over a glass of her rather nice sherry. But then – while I remember her quite well – I doubt she would have had much reason to remember me. Her perspective on her childhood and her career would have been really interesting.
So Josie you do not remember me. You were not the only girl who moved up to Headlands from Clarence Street Junior. I too had a brother at Headlands which is why I went there and not to the new Park Grammar which was much nearer home.I joined Mr. Perkins class at Clarence Street having moved down from Scotland. Everybody was quite intrigued by my Scottish accent. I went into 1u upon entry to Headlands. Elsewhere you mention Roderick John, Alan Forres and Brian Pready as coming from Clarence Street but no mention of me. I remember you very well.
I pretty much enjoyed my time at Headlands. I had a couple of run ins with Miss Jacobs but thought her fair. She certainly used sarcasm to maintain discipline, and never lowered her guard.
All the best to you,
Elaine
I remember you Elaine (Morrison?). We (Jack Lindsey, Nick Lewis, Brian Mason, Raymond Plunkett and I) were poring electronically over a photo of 1U that someone had circulated and I think Ray got the most names, including yours). Isn’t it strange that we’re all connected in a way none of of could imagine when we were at school, thanks to people like Josie and of course science. Last December there was a virtual link up zoom hosted by Eddy and Pam Lane. Hopefully there’ll be another soon. Best wishes to all who see this.
So good to have reconnected with Elaine. And with all of you really. It was not the happiest time for me but that was never the fault of all of you.
Elaine! Elaine Morrison! I have been seeking you!
And yes – I must have totally forgotten that you were at Clarence Street. Mr. Perkins and then Miss Holiday. But I certainly remember you at Headlands. I was even at your house a couple of times. I have many good memories of you. Hockey star! I don’t remember your brother but I do remember meeting your parents.
So glad to be back in touch. You were in Sheffield? Right?
Miss Jacobs was our English Lit teacher in the fifth form, leading up to the O-level GCEs. A few of us who sat near each other were pretty fed up with Jane Austen’s masterpiece “Northanger Abbey” and it probably showed; I think she saw us as mediocre. A day or so before O-levels she called on us by name and stated words to the effect that: “You four are going to fail, and do not expect any extra help from me in retaking the exam!”
Well the four of us all passed, BUT her favourite student failed, and of course he got extra help from Miss Jacob to retake the exam. Brilliant: an early lesson in hypocrisy.
Hi Martin – Good to see your name pop up. I think we started together in 1A in 1959. Miss Harris as form teacher and Latin teacher. Was in the M stream for the next four years.
I’ve always found Nothanger Abbey to be more or less unreadable. And I’m an Austen fan. So can’t think it was such a good choice for GCE. In the M stream – being one slice thicker I suppose – we had a book of short stories. Much more digestible.
Thanks for the Miss J. story. Hope all is well with you.- Josie
Hi Josie, Yes we started together in 1A, then were reunited in the sixth form for Economics (?). As for a slice thicker, you’re the one in Education with the advanced degrees!
All is well here in Oakland – no anarchy! (Loved today’s blog post.)
I hope life is good with you.
Hi again Martin – A slice thicker refers mostly to how the school managed to make people feel. I was always very comfortable in that M section – good vantage point being in the middle. But it was all about the sorting and the institutional expectations that’s where the trouble was. I’ve given it all quite a lot of thought over the years and can see what damage it did to so many.
What was the name of that economics teacher? He was quite good at preparing for the exam if I recall. I ended up with a B through sheer memory power. And I remember the first assignment he ever gave. Which was about Choice. Something like: “Write an essay for or against this statement: ‘Economics is about choice. ‘Agree or disagree.” Or some such.
Life’s good. Keeping cheerful. Which is amazing in itself governed (federally) as we are by those who would happily see us dead it seems. Hope things are good with you too. Both of us a long way from Cricklade Road.
We had Dave Jenkins for the 6th then something Harney for the 7th. I much preferred Jenkins. Still remember the Law of Diminishing Marginal Substitutability! Well not the actual law, the title.
I spent a fair few mornings in that tiny dark corridor. She didn’t know what to do with me because I was always late, thus deserving lines or detention, but I was top of the class in her subject, English, thus presenting a conundrum which didn’t fit her pre-ordained norms – I was in the bottom “0” stream and was therefore slightly despised and expected to be unruly and a bit dim – but I wasn’t, I was small and timid – if scruffy and untidy – and was as she put it “The only one in this class who knows any words” but that was it – the other subjects left me bewildered…but being Good at English labelled me Intelligent but Lazy. Perhaps I was, and to take up a more general cudgel about that school, had subjects been presented in a more interesting way, I could have done a lot better.
Josie’s account of her satchel being different struck a chord. I hadn’t, until I read her comments, realised that parents bought their children the proper stiff leather satchel because of kudos. I always thought it was because they had more money. My mother wasn’t going to pay that much for a satchel and insisted on buying me one that wasn’t only not leather, but canvas, and navy-blue at that, despite my protestations that it wouldn’t last…Indeed it didn’t – it had to be replaced after two years – with another identical one. We weren’t poor by accepted standards – my dad was an electronic engineer, we lived in a semi with a proper upstairs bathroom and a washing machine, and a car…and don’t remind me about my home-knitted cardigan instead of the official one from Kinch and Lack…but that’s another story.
I wasn’t there that often but every visit was a misery. I lived at the far end of Queens Drive so if I missed the bus – which was rare – I was five minutes late and that meant a emotional shredding. Ditto beret infractions. I often skipped out of school via the Womens institute and into Dores Road but only got caught once.
And just think – every one in that class of lazy and dim kids was in the top 20% of the ability range as per the 11+ (ridiculous measure) and yet there they were believing themselves less than and being treated that way by teachers and thos in the “top” classes”. And such a narrow range of ability counted in that egg-sorting process.
Thanks for your comments.
Sad to see so much negativity around this woman – she was simply a reflection of her time for goodness sake! I too found myself in the miscreants line outside her room, but my overall view 50+ years on is that she was doing a hard job in the only way she knew! My misdemeanor? I had my legs apart on the back of a motorbike and I was in school uniform ! It was irrelevant that the motorcyclist was my brother who was driving me to school! But another memory is of her care and concern when treating my friend’s injury when a javelin thrower trod on her foot in his spikes during school athletics day!
Miss Jacob retired the year we left school and I do have a vague memory that a group of us girls drove into town and bought her a farewell present – so she couldn’t have been all bad…
I detested her back in the day but I do see it differently now. She was, as you say, a person of her place and time – narrow minded and conscientious. And she probably got little credit from Magson as looking after girls was not really his thing – at school at least. She was doing the job the school required her to do. It’s good to hear the anecdotes that restore the memory of her kindness and humanity. So thank-you for adding them.
She hated my guts & I had the humiliation treatment on more than one occasion.
(She also absurdly pronounced any word beginning “wh” as if the letters were the other way round -hence “hwite”….)
However, seeing stars in maths following concussion in the previous games period, I was dispatched by Rackham to the sick bay run by Aggie. For the next couple of hours she was a model of solicitude, not flinching & sparing my embarrassment even when removing my noisome daps…..
Normal disdain was effortlessly resumed a day or 2 later. A complex woman, I suspect.
A complex person – yes. I hated her with a passion back in the day. I think I understand her a little better now. And yes – all that over compensation for her South Wales roots.
But hey! Raymond – Great to hear from you!
And speaking of Mr. Rackham – I carry with me the times I contributed to making his life a living misery.
Yes Josie, was good to see you in print when a month or 2 ago I was directed to your coruscating piece on HGS by one of our small group who meet up from time to time! You may not have taught grammar but I’m afraid you have not been able escape the influence of a grammar school education. You’re a delight to read! Fond regards. Ray.
I also (have) encountered no-one who has a good word for her. AND she has not been rehabilitated by history. In one of my few enlightened moments I remember thinking, it’s bad enough being a boy here; imagine being a girl! The one encounter I remember was sneaking past her office, with a queue of girls waiting nervously (for gender reassignment i now realise). She appeared as if by (black) magic, and screamed ‘Who are you? What are you?’ at me, which puzzles me to this day. (Just wanted to show that other genders are available).
Running a tight and tyrannical ship was what was expected of her. That’s what I have come to think. Magson came from the boys independent school world plus Cambridge and now he needed someone to manage these female creatures and keep them up to standard so they kept up the good name of the school. Etc.
In my latest post I do try to open the possibility of rehabilitation. And I bet that any living relatives out there who knew her would attest that she was warm and kind. Hard to be those things when you are Disciplinarian-in-Chief (girls division) in a school like Headlands.
Cheers David and thanks for the comment.
I remember being sent by Miss Jacob to Mr Mags on along with my friend Jennie Bird for eating an ice lolly outside school whilst waiting for our school bus back to Blunsdon. Can you imagine that nowadays!!
When I started teaching at a tech’ college, I had to cope with classes of unruly apprentices (just about manageable) but worst nightmare was the nursing cadets -16 year old girls who were hoping to train as nurses. It was a good day if I could persuade them to put out their cigarettes and turn off their transistor radios within 15 minutes of the start of the class. HOW I envied Miss Jacob’s ability to reduce a teenage hoyden to tears just by giving them ‘the look’!
What a sad reflection on her career, universally disliked and well remembered for all the wrong reasons. I would love to have seen the girls’ faces while listening to Mr Magson’s ‘tribute’, no doubt there were many smirks behind hands!
She was so hated and despised by almost everyone that I feel quite sorry for her now. What an epitaph!!
I remember her “posh” voice,which if you managed to really annoy her,would slip into a Welsh accent.It was almost worth it